Overview

A transition moves a scene from one shot to the next. Generally, you use a simple cut to move from shot to shot, but in some cases you might want to transition between shots by phasing out one and phasing in another. Premiere Pro provides many transitions that you can apply to your sequence. A transition can be a subtle crossfade or a stylized effect, such as a page turn or spinning pinwheel. While you usually place a transition on a cut line between shots, you can also apply a transition to only the beginning or end of a clip.

By default, placing one clip next to another in a Timeline panel results in a cut, where the last frame of one clip is simply followed by the first frame of the next. When you want to emphasize or add a special effect to a scene change, you can add any of a variety of transitions, such as wipes, zooms, and dissolves. Apply transitions to the timeline using the Effects panel, and edit them using the Timeline and the Effect Controls panel.

Transitions are available in the Video Transitions and the Audio Transitions bins in the Effects panel. Premiere Pro provides many transitions, including dissolves, wipes, slides, and zooms. These transitions are organized in bins by type.

Kevin Monahan shows how to create new transitions based on effects in an article on the Adobe website: using effects as transitions in Adobe Premiere Pro in this blog post.

You can create custom bins to group effects any
way you’d like. (See Work
with bins.)

Learn tutorial

Clip handles and transitions

In most cases, you don’t want a transition to occur
during the essential action in a scene. For this reason, transitions
work best with handles—the extra frames beyond the
In and Out points set for the clip.

The handle between a clip’s Media Start time and In point is
sometimes called head material, and the handle between
a clip’s Out point and Media End time is sometimes called tail
material.

A clip with handles

A.
Media Start B.
Handle C.
In point D.
Out point E.
Handle F.
Media
End

In some cases, the source media may not contain enough frames
for clip handles. If you apply a transition, and the handle duration
is too short to cover the transition duration, an alert appears
to warn you that frames will be repeated to cover the duration.
If you decide to proceed, the transition appears in a Timeline panel
with diagonal warning bars through it.

Transition using duplicate frames

For best results with transitions, shoot and
capture source media with sufficient handles beyond the In and Out
points of the actual clip duration you want to use.

Single- and double-sided transitions

Transitions are typically double-sided—they combine the last video or audio material from the clip before the cut with the first material from the clip right after the cut. You can, however, apply a transition to an individual clip so that it affects only the beginning or end of the clip. A transition applied to a single clip is called single-sided. The clip can be immediately adjacent to another clip or sitting by itself on a track. You can apply double-sided transitions only when the clip before the cut has a handle at its tail, and the clip after the cut has a handle at its head. For more information, see Applying transitions.

Using single-sided transitions, you have more control over how clips transition. For example, you can create the effect of one clip departing using the Cube Spin transition, and the next clip fading in using Dither Dissolve.

Single-sided transitions fade to and from a transparent state, not to and from black. Whatever is below the transition in a Timeline panel appears in the transparent portion of the transition (the portion of the effect that would display frames from the adjacent clip in a two-sided transition). If the clip is on Video 1 or has no clips beneath it, the transparent portions display black. If the clip is on a track above another clip, the lower clip is shown through the transition, making it look like a double-sided transition.

Single-sided transition with clip beneath it (left) compared
to single-sided transition with nothing beneath it (right)

If you want to fade to black between clips, use
the Dip To Black dissolve. Dip To Black doesn’t reveal any underlying
clips; it always fades to black.

In a Timeline panel or the Effect Controls panel, a double-sided
transition has a dark diagonal line through it, while a single-sided
transition is split diagonally with one half dark and one half light.

If a double-sided transition must repeat frames (rather than use trimmed frames), the transition icon contains additional diagonal lines. The lines span the area where it has used the repeated frames. (See Clip handles and transitions.)

Applying transitions

To place a transition between two clips (centered on
the cut line), the clips must be on the same track, with no space
between them. As you drag the transition to a Timeline panel, you
can adjust the alignment interactively. Whether or not the clips
have trimmed frames determines how you can align the transition
as you place it between the clips. The pointer changes to indicate
the alignment options as you move it over the cut:

If both clips contain trimmed frames at the cut, you
can center the transition over the cut or you can align it on either
side of the cut so that it either starts or ends at the cut.

If neither clip contains trimmed frames, the transition automatically
centers over the cut and repeats frames from the first clip, or
from the second clip, or from both clips, as needed to fill the
transition duration. Diagonal bars appear on transitions that use
repeated frames.

If only the first clip contains trimmed frames, the transition
automatically snaps to the In point of the next clip. The transition
uses the first clip’s trimmed frames for the transition and does
not repeat frames from the second clip.

If only the second clip contains trimmed frames, then the
transition snaps to the Out point of the first clip. The transition
uses the second clip’s trimmed frames for the transition and does
not repeat frames from the first clip.

The default duration
of a transition, for either audio or video, is set to 1 second. If
a transition contains trimmed frames, but not enough to fill the
transition duration, Premiere Pro adjusts the duration to match
the frames. You can adjust the duration and alignment of a transition
after you place it.

Note:

Transition commands operate on all merged audio track items
together. However, timeline targeting must be enabled to apply the
default audio transition to multiple audio tracks at one time. The
desired audio transition must be the user selected default, and
you must use the Apply Audio Transition command. If you drag and
drop the transition, it will be applied to a single audio track
only.

Apply a single-sided transition

In the Effects panel, find the transition
you want to apply. You’ll need to expand the Video Transitions bin,
and then expand the bin containing the transition you want to use.

To place a transition on a single cut, Ctrl-drag (Windows)
or Command-drag (Mac OS) the transition into a Timeline panel. Release
the mouse when you see either the End At Cut or Start At Cut icon.

End At Cut icon

Aligns the end of the transition to the end of the first
clip.

Start At Cut icon

Aligns the beginning of the transition to the beginning of the second clip.

Note:

As you drag over heads or tails of clips in a Timeline panel, you can see the area covered by the transition outlined.

To place a transition at the end of a clip
that is not adjacent to another clip, drag and drop the transition.
Don’t Ctrl-drag (Windows) or Command-drag (Mac OS). The transition
automatically becomes single-sided.

To preview the transition, play the sequence or drag
the current-time indicator through the transition.

Specify and apply default transitions

You can specify a video transition and an
audio transition as default transitions and quickly apply them between
clips in a sequence. A red outline marks default transition icons
in the Effects panel. Cross Dissolve and Constant Power Crossfade are
preset as the video and audio default transitions.

If you
use another transition more frequently, you can set it as the default.
When you change the default transition setting, you change the default
for all projects. Changing the default transition doesn’t affect
transitions already applied to sequences.

If
you want to apply the default transition to most or all of the clips
in a sequence, consider using the Automate To Sequence command.
Automate To Sequence places the default video and audio transition
between all the clips it adds. See Add
clips to a sequence automatically.

Set the duration of the default
transition

Change the value for the Video Transition Default Duration
or Audio Transition Default Duration, and then click OK.

Add the default transition between
two clips

You can apply the default transition to adjoining
pairs of clips on one or more tracks

Click one or more track headers to target the
tracks where you want to add the transition.

Position the current-time indicator at the edit point
where the pair or pairs of clips meet. To navigate to an edit point,
you can click the Go To Next Edit Point and Go To Previous Edit
Point buttons in the Program Monitor.

You can add the default video transition between clips
in a video track by pressing Ctrl+D (Windows) or Command+D (Mac
OS). You can add the default audio transition between two clips
in an audio track by pressing Ctrl+Shift+D (Windows) or Command+Shift+D
(Mac OS).

Apply default transitions between
selected clips

You can apply the default video and audio
transitions to any selection of two or more clips. The default transitions
are applied to every edit point where two selected clips touch.
The placement does not depend upon the position of the current-time
indicator or on whether the clips lie on targeted tracks. The default transitions
are not applied where a selected clip touches a non-selected clip
or no clip at all.

In the Timeline, select two or more clips. Shift-click
clips, or draw a marquee over them, to select them.

Copy and paste a transition to
multiple edit points

You can add a transition quickly to several
edit points within your sequence by copying and pasting the transition.
This feature is helpful if you've changed a transition's default
settings and want to use the modified transition again.

If you paste
a transition without selecting edit points, the transitions are pasted
to edit points at or near the playhead, without overriding track targeting.

If a selected edit point already has a transition, and:

if the pasted transition is different from the existing one,
then the transition type changes but preserves the existing transition's
duration and alignment. For example, pasting a Cross Dissolve transition
over a Barn Door transition.

if the pasted transition is the same as the existing transition,
then the duration and alignment are changed. For example, both are
Cross Dissolve transitions.

A copied transition's alignment is preserved if it's set
to one of the presets, but not if it has a custom setting.